


When He First Noticed Him

by Mrs_H



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Gap Filler, M/M, One True Pairing, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 03:17:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21111785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrs_H/pseuds/Mrs_H
Summary: "So, did you ever notice me before?""Yeah. Of course."This is my take on when Grizz first noticed Sam and the years in between.





	When He First Noticed Him

**Author's Note:**

> W/C: ~5,200
> 
> Pairing: Grizz/Sam, Grizz/OFC
> 
> A/N: Please leave feedback. I haven’t written fanfic in well over a decade but these two awoke something in me.

Grizz first noticed Sam on a Tuesday afternoon. He typically wouldn’t have remembered that it was a Tuesday, but it was the first day of practice for the Varsity football team of his sophomore year and he’d been unusually nervous so his eyes had wandered to the people in the bleachers, hanging out watching practice, doing homework, or waiting for their ride home. He couldn’t make out much from his vantage point, mostly just the quick hand movements that the boy with the redish hair made as he signed to the dark-haired girl sitting next to him, but he’d noticed.

He noticed Sam again two weeks later when he crossed paths with him in the office. He’d had a doctor’s appointment that had run long and even though he’d turned sixteen just before school started, he didn’t have his license yet so his mom had to drop him off which meant, for her, that she had to walk him into the office with his note. While he sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs as his mom filled out the paperwork to excuse his tardiness, movement in the hallway caught his eye. It was the boy with the quick hand movements and the girl from the bleachers.

He knew that staring at a deaf person signing was considered eavesdropping, and therefore rude, but for a sixteen year old boy with raging hormones who had just figured out he was gay, he couldn’t help it. He brought the book he’d been reading higher up in front of his face to hopefully hide the fact he couldn’t take his eyes off the lightly ginger-haired boy with the, as he was close enough to see now, bluest eyes. He continued to pretend to read about Ender, Bean and the game they played, but his eyes darted over frequently enough that they eventually caught blue eyes looking back at him. He felt his gut tighten and he flashed a quick, cursory smile before bringing the book completely eye level and felt the back of his neck go hot.

It was a week of stealthily catching glances across the cafeteria before he figured out a way of casually asking Luke, his first real friend at school (moving to a new town after freshman year was hell), and lifetime West Ham resident who the deaf boy he couldn’t stop thinking about was.

“Who’s that?” he nodded with his head when he had Luke’s attention.

Luke looked across the room at where Grizz had nodded. “That’s Sam. Why?”

“No reason. I’ve just seen him around. Haven’t met too many deaf people.”

Luke nodded his head. “Yeah, same here. He’s nice enough. Strange to think he’s Campbell’s little brother. Talk about opposites.”

“He’s a freshman?” Luke nodded his head again, took a bite of his apple. Grizz dropped the subject then as Clark let rip an echoing belch that had all of them holding their stomachs in laughter.

In an effort to push down his forbidden crush, Grizz started dating Chelsea Higgins just before Winter Formal that year. His mind occasionally wandered back to Sam Eliot (whose last name he had learned by now), and even more rarely his eyes sought him out across the cafeteria or campus, but dating Chelsea was safer.

He had no real shame in who he was. He thought about other boys when he masturbated. He watched gay porn. He’d sneak glances of other boys in the locker room, but he’d overheard the football team joking and laughing around one day about the kid in junior year who’d asked his boyfriend to Homecoming and he couldn’t risk losing the only friends he had. It was just easier to play it straight than it was to come out.

So he dated Chelsea over winter break and through New Year’s. And then Kaitlyn Martin who he lost his virginity to over spring break. And over the summer he dated Beth Turner. She was a year behind him but she liked that he’d finally gotten his license and he liked that she came in every day that he worked at the bookstore and knew all of his football stats from sophomore year so he eventually asked her out.

Junior year started not much differently than sophomore year had. He played football. He made new friends and joined a couple of social groups (Hemingway’s Heroes – a weekly on-campus book club, Poe’s Players - an interactive poetry club, and Shakespearean Shorts – the Bard in quick fifteen minute plays put on during lunch). He kept up his job at the bookstore when school started, and balancing it, his studies (he was going to be attending an out of state college if his life depended on it), and Varsity football left not enough time for a relationship so Beth dumped him, loudly and publicly at lunch one day. He couldn’t honestly blame her and if he took that honesty one step further, he was relieved. No one would question if Grizz Visser didn’t date again for a while; he and Beth had been together for almost six months, practically a lifetime when you were seventeen, so he was safe to stop pretending so outwardly that he was something that he wasn’t.

He wasn’t ready to come out; he’d still catch Clark and some of the other guys making homophobic comments (probably in that stereotypic, immature guy kind of way but all the same, he wasn’t going to risk it). He only had one more year to go and then he could move far away and start his life over the way he wanted to live it. Plus, after his dad left his mom thus culminating in their move to West Ham a little over a year and a half ago, she was all he had and he knew it would break her heart if the Pee Wee football she’d enrolled him in hadn’t tackled the gay out of him like she’d hoped it would.

The beautiful boy with the blue eyes had never been far from Grizz’s thoughts. Through the girls, parties, studies, and life as one of West Ham’s most popular and well-liked students, Grizz still thought about him. Still looked out across the campus at lunch or in between classes for Sam Eliot. Everyone had that high school crush that they never acted on and Sam was his.

Summer passed in a blur of pool parties, weed – something he’d been introduced to at Harrison Young’s graduation party – solo camping trips, work, quiet reading in the hammock he’d hung one evening, and counting down the days until he could get out of that small town.

Senior year started almost the same as the last two years had. Football season culminated in a trip to the championships. He’d been a member of Luke’s Homecoming court but insisted on attending the dance without a date, much to the chagrin of the girls in his senior class. Every week that passed brought him closer to graduation and freedom.

He’d planned it all out. He’d take the summer and load up his car – he’d been saving his bookstore money and he’d be able to afford one by then (“It’ll mean more to you if you work for the money to buy it than if I just buy it for you, kiddo,” his mom was fond of saying even if the alimony and child support from his dad made it possible) – and drive across the country to one of the schools he’d get into on the west coast. He hadn’t applied to anything east of Denver so it would be very easy to spend the three months driving west, stopping at the National Parks and touring the museums, no matter where he got in to.

It was all going according to plan. That is until The Smell arrived.

Grizz was actually looking forward to the forced camping trip. Kind of like a last hurrah with his friends before prom and graduation in a couple of weeks. He’d decided that the only true way he could start living his life like he wanted to, come out in college, was to plan on never seeing any of his teammates and friends again after graduation; clean slate, fresh start and all that jazz.

When the buses rolled back into the town center he didn’t think much of it. He was groggy, had to pee, and just very much wanted to get off the bus and away from Sam Eliot who he’d managed to avoid for the last three years but who had somehow managed to sneak onto his bus. But when the buses left and there were no parents there with waiting arms or annoyed looks on their faces at being pulled out of their beds at 1:30 in the morning, he started to grow worried.

As the days passed into weeks, the situation they found themselves in seemingly growing more dire by the minute, Grizz’s attention was split between helping to keep the calm and still trying to avoid the boy with blue eyes as much as possible. Something he quickly learned was a futile endeavor.

Sam seemed to be everywhere all the time. The carefully crafted invisible wall Grizz had erected between the two of them since his sophomore year was starting to crumble. They were on committees together, working towards keeping the community safe and trying to figure out what the hell happened and where the fuck they were. And tentatively, a friendship started to form. It simultaneously elated and killed Grizz. Finally, a chance to get to know the boy who’d occupied his thoughts and dreams for three years but no chance to take the next step.

***

Prom was all the buzz in the days leading up to it. He figured he’d go, get good and drunk, and then pass out alone (his days of being with girls were over) only to work off the hangover the next day cleaning up the dance hall. But somehow, maybe it was the cheesy love songs their parents listened to playing over the speakers, or the twinkling lights, or all the beer he’d consumed, he found himself sitting next to the boy with blue eyes. Conversation stuttered but Grizz didn’t care. He was less than three feet away from Sam and for a moment it was just the two of them. 

Grizz awoke the next morning with the hangover he suspected he’d have and a few foggy memories but one stood out clear as crystal. He’d approached Sam and they’d had a conversation (even though it started with the word ‘bullshit’). The first real conversation they’d had that didn’t revolve around what the hell had happened to them and where the fuck they were. He allowed himself to feel the first fluttering of a crush reborn before he checked his phone. It had been the soft ringtone he’d always used that had roused him from sleep.

Cassandra was dead. Everything changed.

Between the trial and execution of Dewey, a few things began to take shape for Grizz. One, he felt (even if he never showed it) way outside his depth all the time. He’d probably cried more in the last six weeks than he had since infancy and he’d stopped caring about that fact when he’d watched Emily die right in front of him. Two, it didn’t appear as if they were escaping or being rescued from their own Lord of the Flies-esque purgatory any time soon (and to think, he loved the book when he read it freshman year). Three, he was beginning to grow desperate for an opportunity to get to know Sam better. The crush that had reignited after the prom never tempered itself again.

***

In the five months that had passed since Dewey had been killed, a new routine took shape in their newly organized town. Grizz spent most of his days patrolling the streets, sitting outside Allie’s house (his favorite Guard duty as it allowed him the highest chance of seeing and interacting with Sam), or keeping an eye on the padlocked grocery store. He was growing restless so when Will announced that they’d be out of food by next summer if more wasn’t found, he volunteered to lead the search party. But before he could pack and prepare to leave, there was something he needed to do first 

Grizz took himself to the library one rainy afternoon and found the Languages section he needed. He scanned the titles before finally finding the one he wanted. Tucked onto the bottom shelf next to books on Swahili and Farsi was a book on British Sign Language. He plucked it off the shelf and placed it into his bag.

He spent the next couple of days pouring over the diagrams and practicing the hand movements, even practicing in the mirror a couple of times to make sure he was doing it right. He knew he’d probably not be very good at it, but he was hoping that it’d be enough to impress Sam and maybe earn some one-on-one tutoring time with him to learn more when he got back from the expedition. He’d just turned the page to continue his studying when his phone vibrated next to him. ’Meet me at the jewelry store’ - Luke.

“What’s up?” Grizz asked as he met Luke outside. They clasped hands and pulled each other in for a one-armed hug. He sent Clark a quick nod of his head.

“I’m asking Helena to marry me.”

“No shit! Congrats, man. That’s huge.”

“Yeah. Was hoping you could help me pick out a ring for her.” Luke pushed the door open after Clark broke the chain on it and led them inside.

Grizz followed behind as Luke spoke about the institution of marriage and how, in this world without the laws but what they’d made, it was kind of funny but that it was still important. “All right, umm, what do you think? One of these guys?" Grizz pointed at a display with a box of rings in it. He walked around the counter at Luke’s agreement and opened the back of the display.

"I don’t know what you’re frettin’ so hard on this ring shit. It’s not like you’re buying anything for her; just handing it to her,” Clark said.

“Well, I want to do it right. She’s special. I want it to feel special.” Luke turned the ring over in his fingers. “She sees in me who I can be and not just the dude I think I am.” He looked up at Grizz. “When someone sees you like that, you want them looking at you forever.”

He walked home with Luke’s words buzzing in the back of his brain. He wasn’t sure how Sam saw him, or even if Sam really saw him at all. He knew Sam knew he existed but he wasn’t sure if Sam saw him like he saw Sam. He’d been hoping to wait until he got back from searching for farmland to find out but he was also tired, like deep in his soul tired, of waiting. And he may die out there. He knew it sounded dramatic but shit happened and he couldn’t, he just couldn’t go off into the woods without knowing.

He passed Gordie about a block from his house. “Hey, Gordie.”

“Oh hey, Grizz. How’s the preparations for the discovery trip going?" 

"Good. Hey, do you know where I can find Sam. I need to talk to him about something.”

“I think he’s at the library.”

“Thanks.” He continued on to his house, the butterflies starting to take flight in his belly.

The library seemed ominous as he approached it. He’d always loved the library. When he was little his parents would take him every Friday after school so he could pick out new books to read. As he got older, he always appreciated the quiet they provided. Football was always so loud but in the library, tucked away in a reading nook he could get lost at sea with Hemingway or travel down an unbeaten path with Frost. It was in the library where he felt most like himself with himself and now he was going to be putting himself out there in a way he never had before.

He stepped through the double doors and saw Sam standing there, his back to him. He took another step and turned, almost back outside but then the door was closed and he was walking around to get Sam’s attention. He got far enough around to Sam’s front that he gave a slight wave and smiled lightly. He thought Sam looked happy to see him but he was so nervous he couldn’t really tell.

“What are you doing here?” Sam asked, amusement crossing his features 

“Gordie said I could find you in the library.” He tucked some of his hair behind his ear, an anxious tick his mother had called it. He interrupted whatever it was Sam was going to say. “Oh, one sec. Just,” he inhaled and smiled, made the hand signs he’d been practicing and watched as Sam’s face came to a conclusion of not impressed but rather confusion.

“Um.”

“No? You don’t look so impressed.” He was pretty sure his stomach was turning into an all consuming cave within himself that he hoped would just swallow him whole.

“Am I supposed to understand that?”

“You didn’t?”

“Nah.”

“Fuck. That’s…”

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to speak in Gibberish, apparently.” He looked at the floor, willed it to open and consume him. Instead, he took a breath and explained, “I wanted to say ‘How are you?’ 'Nice to see you,’ and 'How do you like my sign language?’” He reached for his bag and held up the book he’d taken earlier that week. He didn’t expect Sam’s laughter when he held it up. “What?”

“This is BSL.”

“Yeah.”

“I use ASL.”

“The- they’re different.” Sam nodded. “Come on, man! It’s the only book I could find.” He slammed it down on to the counter and tried to not feel like the asshole he was positive he looked like right now.

“Why are you learning sign language? Are you planning on going deaf?”

“No, I’m not. It’s just I wanted to be able to talk to you. Or you know, sign to you.”

Sam looked confused. “I can read lips.”

“I know. I wanted to be able to talk to you in you know, your language.”

“Oh.” And Grizz may have been seeing it because he’d wanted to but he thought maybe Sam looked impressed after all. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for this trip?”

“Sure, but I’m also preparing for when I get back.” He held the eye contact, hoped that what he couldn’t say out loud just yet was coming across.

The tips of Sam’s ears turned softest shade of pink and his lips spread into a shy smile. “Oh.”

Grizz left the library feeling better than he had in the last six months. Better than he’d felt in the last four years if he was being honest. He’d made an initial move. He wasn’t sure where it would go, if it could go anywhere; just because Sam was gay didn’t mean he’d automatically return the feelings, but he’d put himself out there. His phone vibrated in his pocket as he turned the corner towards his house. ’I’m impressed.’ - Sam

They met up two days later at the garden that Grizz had planted with a few of the other members of the society. They’d been texting (one of Allie’s rules he’d be eternally grateful for ‘Everyone has each others numbers. Period’), slyly flirting with one another back and forth since he’d left the library but hadn’t seen each other. He was almost as nervous now, watching Sam cross the gravel to meet him at the planter box, as he had been outside the library. He signed hello and smiled. Sam smiled back.

As they worked next to each other throughout the day, Sam teaching Grizz new signs, Grizz teaching Sam the ways of gardening, they snuck furtive glances at the other. Grizz liked the way Sam’s hands, so delicate and purposeful, felt when they’d accidentally brush against his own. And Sam itched to reach out and brush Grizz’s hair away from his eyes, so sincere and yet still so shy.

They took a break for lunch splitting the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apple, and chips that Grizz had brought with him. Conversation swayed between the movie that was playing tomorrow night (Planes, Trains, and Automobiles), what they would have been doing if they were with their families (Grizz - entertaining his younger cousins while his mom and Aunt Jenny prepared dinner, he, of course would be sneaking “samples” the entire time, Sam - avoiding Campbell and spending the afternoon with Allie and Cassandra at their house), and what their plans had been if the next year had been what it was supposed to be. Neither one of them spent too much time dwelling on the, as Grizz liked to think of it, Future-Past as there were happier things to discuss and new, future possibilities to think about.

“So,” he said as he dug the dirt away from the carrot with the spade, “what you wanna do is grab the whole vegetable,” he casually reached over for Sam’s hand, “not just the green part.”

“Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at Sam so he knew he’d be understood. “So now twist, and pull.” Sam did as he was instructed and after a moment, the root gave way and he held the carrot out for Grizz. “Oh yeah, nice. There ya go.”

“Wow. That’s pretty cool.”

“Thank you, yes.” He smiled back at Sam smiling at him.

“Should we pull some more?” He turned to pick up the basket of carrots he’d pulled throughout the day and then back to Sam. “I mean, we’re missing dinner.”

“Um, I don’t know. I sort of like losing track of time. It happens a lot down here.” His mind searched quickly for something to say, anything to keep Sam all to himself for just a few more minutes. “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. It’s um,” he signed the letters for C-I-C-E-R-O, “Cicero, I think.”

“Cicero?”

“Yeah.”

“Very smart.”

“Ah,” he felt the back of his neck go hot, “thank you so much.” He liked the way Sam’s laugh sounded, kind of breathy, genuine.

“Soo,” Sam drew the single consonant out, “do you?”

“Do I what?” He looked into eyes that were so blue they shouldn’t have been allowed to exist on the color spectrum.

“Have you all need?”

The words carried the weight of possibility with them. His stomach tightened and knew that this could be a turning point for him with Sam. Sam was giving him an opening that carried with it no fear of repercussion of rejection. Because if Sam didn’t feel the same way as he did (and by now he was pretty sure that he did), he could just blow off the answer and Sam wouldn’t think anything other than they’d spent the afternoon in the garden together. But if he put as much weight into his answer as was in the question, maybe they could take the tentative next steps together. He glanced down for a brief moment and took the plunge. “Almost.” He heard the weight of his own word even if Sam couldn’t and did his best to have his face match what his tone conveyed.

They walked back in companionable silence to Grizz’s house, Sam’s shoulder occasionally bumping into his arm, the backs of their hands ghosting past each other. If this was as good as he could get with Sam before he left, he thought it could be enough. For now. He’d waited four years to find out what it was like to kiss Sam, touch him, slip his hand into Sam’s and link their fingers together. He could wait another couple of weeks.

He opened his front door and found the house thankfully empty for a change. Everyone must have been at the church for dinner. He supported Allie’s rules that everyone share homes and live communally but he occasionally missed the quiet his home used to afford him. Mercifully, as a member of the Guard, he was allowed to have his own private room. He led Sam there now, thinking he could grab his heavier jacket before they joined the others.

“Hall of Fame?” he heard Sam ask as he tossed his flannel across the bed.

“Oh. Yeah. Whatever.” He blushed just barely when he looked at Sam and answered. Sam was looking at the Hall of Frame trophy he’d received at the end of football season.

“No, that’s cool.” Sam continued to look around the room. Football posters mixed with literary figures on the walls. Clothing was mostly in the hamper. The table tops held more books than tchotchkes. High school sports trophies had their own shelf. The room embodied the enigma that was Gareth Visser perfectly.

“I guess,” he sat down on the edge of his bed. “Doesn’t mean much now.” He watched as Sam continued to examine the posters, field and ice hockey equipment, and titles on the books he kept. He felt vulnerable. When he caught Sam looking at him he said, “Can I ask you a personal question?”

Sam nodded and took the space next to Grizz on the bed, turned to face him.

“Were you born deaf? Or could you ever hear?”

“I lost my hearing when I got sick. I was three, maybe four. I had meningitis.“

"Meningitis?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. Wow, that’s… Do you remember from before that? Hearing?”

“Some. I remember my mom’s voice, the way she would sing to me and Campbell. My dad’s laugh.”

Grizz signed the word, 'cool,’ because he didn’t trust his voice at the moment. He knew Sam couldn’t hear, but he wanted to keep himself together.

“When I dream, I still dream with sound. But not new sounds.”

“What would be a new sound?”

“My voice.” Grizz nodded. “I remember my voice when I was a kid, but I’m guessing it’s a little deeper now.” That made Grizz laugh and agree. “I wish I could hear yours.”

Sam let the words hang there between them. All of the intimacy they carried, the wanting, all laid out for Grizz to make the next move with.

Grizz would look back on the moment and realize that it was only a second that had passed between what Sam said and the next words he would utter but in the moment, time slowed down and his heart grew to damn near bursting size within his chest. He swallowed hard and made the biggest decision of his life. “Can you teach me um, one more phrase in sign language?” He was too scared to look away from his bed spread but he glanced up just enough to see Sam’s acquiesce and gnawed on his bottom lip. “How do you say, 'kiss me’?”

He didn’t see the small upturn at the corners of Sam’s mouth (when had that spot gotten there on his bedspread, he wondered?) but he felt the mattress dip and Sam’s face draw closer. And then Sam’s lips were on his and he didn’t want to sound overly dramatic but it was everything. Absolutely everything.

He kept his eyes closed as they pulled momentarily away from each other, afraid that it would turn out to be just a very vivid hallucination, but then Sam’s hands were framing his face and he was kissing him again, more deeply this time. He didn’t know what to do with his hands at first. He hadn’t thought that far ahead when he’d asked Sam to kiss him but as the kisses grew deeper and he felt Sam’s tongue slide against his own, his hands figured out what to do all on their own. They wrapped around Sam and pulled them both down onto the soft mattress. Grizz exhaled softly as he felt Sam shift his weight to lay half on top of him, his mouth never leaving his.

Grizz let Sam lead the way, wouldn’t take it any further than Sam was willing to go. He never thought he’d ever actually get this far with Sam and now that he was here, he was in no hurry to risk ruining it, even if every fiber of his being was screaming at him for more, more, more. He broke the kiss when he felt Sam’s fingertips brush under the hem of his shirt and against his belly. Gooseflesh broke out where fingers trailed and he let out a shaky breath. “We don’t have to,” he started, making sure Sam could see his mouth, before Sam silenced him with another kiss.

“I want to touch you,” Sam explained as he pulled the shirt up over Grizz’s head. He sat up to help Sam and in the process disrobe Sam of his own shirt. They tumbled back into bed, skin on skin.

Clothing littered the floor from where they’d discarded it in the hurry to get their hands on each other. Fingers wrapped around embodiments of lust and arousal, moans were felt and shared. When they were both completely satisfied, Sam leaned over the side of the bed to pick up an old sock to clean themselves with.

Grizz settled back against his pillows and for the first time sent up a small prayer of thanks the buses had led them back to this place, this doppleganger of a town because without it, he’d never have been able to be with Sam. A cruel twist of fate to be sure. They’d all had to lose so much, go through so much, but at that moment, as Sam moved into his side and placed his head against his shoulder, Grizz wasn’t sure he’d trade it for anything. 

“So,” Sam started, “did you ever notice me before?” 

“Yeah. Of course.” Grizz thought briefly about that Tuesday in the afternoon sun and the boy signing to his friend in the bleachers. He thought about that day in the office. He thought about every glance across the cafeteria he was able to sneak for three years. “It’s why I stayed away.”

Sam playfully smacked Grizz’s chest. “Why?”

Grizz laughed. “‘Cause I was caught up in being straight.” He looked at Sam and smiled.

“You were very convincing.”

“Mm, not to my mom,” he turned serious. “She knew right away. I really loved tap dancing so she signed me up for Pee Wee football.”

“She thought she was making your life easier.”

“Yeah.” He became somber and far away for a moment. He needed to not think about his mom while he had Sam, naked and pressed against him in his bed, but damn he missed her. “Somewhere there’s a picture of me from that tap class with a feather boa…”

“I need to see that picture,” Sam laughed out which made Grizz laugh with him.

“I was always really good at football so it was easy just to be like my friends. But now,” he shook his head, “I sorta feel like I’m twelve years old again.I’m starting over. Is that weird? Like I should send a girl with a note that says, ‘Dear Sam, Do you like Grizz, yes or no?’”

Sam smiled. “You have to ask?” He got up on his elbow and leaned down to kiss Grizz for what felt like the millionth, and still yet first, time in the last hour.


End file.
